35. Sage
THIRTY-FIVE
SAGE
He kisses me back, hard. His hands are on my hips and he’s not keeping them still, like he isn’t sure if he should push me down into him or just steady himself for impact. He tastes like wine and some kind of boy-sweetness I can’t name and nothing about this is gentle.
I’m struck by how differently he kisses from Knox and Micah.
Micah kisses like the world will end, like he wants the taste of me to carry him through the apocalypse.
Knox barely lets himself have me at all—when he does, it’s with this hunger, this totality, and it’s a force field.
Milo kisses me like he’s playing for keeps.
Full contact, full stakes. He’s all in, hands everywhere, tongue greedy and clever, no slow build-up, no testing the waters.
He burns from zero to one-thousand and expects me to meet him there.
I do.
He tilts his head, deepens the kiss, and I taste the hum he’d been holding back—a half-laugh, half-moan that vibrates through me all the way to my toes.
His hands slide from my hips to my ass, holding me tighter, and I feel the shake of his fingers as he grabs a handful of me and pulls me closer. The heat is immediate and frantic, my skin prickling from the effort of keeping up.
My hands go to his hair, tangle there. He makes a greedy sound and bites my bottom lip, not hard, just a promise. I squirm, and in reply, he angles his hips up and into me. I gasp, and the sound is swallowed by the kiss, and the shifting, wet slide of his tongue on mine.
He pulls back, breathless. “Just for the record, you started this.”
“Are you complaining?”
He cups my face, and the look he gives me is so fucking open it’s almost dangerous. “Never. Just like proper documen—”
I kiss him to shut him up. He grins against my mouth and I want to bite him for it. So I do, nipping at his bottom lip as I rock against him. He groans, and his hands slide from my hips to my back, and it hits me that he’s staying on top of my clothes.
He’s not going under my shirt. He’s not trying to grope at my chest. His hands are at the safe latitudes of back and hips and he’s letting me lead the rest.
“Milo.”
“Yes, kitten?”
“Take my shirt off.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
My shirt hits the floor, and I shiver. The look Milo gives me is somewhere between reverence and total fucking delight. He makes this sound, a soft, awed “hoh,” like he’s seeing boobs for the first time since birth.
“You good?” I ask, acutely aware of my own skin.
“Better than good, kitten,” he says, and then he’s on me, his hands cupping my bare shoulders, his mouth trailing kisses from my collarbone down down down.
I try to catch my breath but it skips away every time he latches onto a new piece of me.
His hands are warm, almost shaking, and when he finally gets to my chest, he pauses.
“How about you?” He says it into my skin, voice muffled and so earnest it undoes me a little.
“Hell yes.”
“Sure?”
“Milo, you can stop asking. I’ll tell you if I don’t like something.”
“Sorry. Sorry. Bad habit. I check things.”
“It’s not a bad habit.”
“I just mean—I don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t ask.”
“You’re not.”
I kiss him again. His hand slides up my ribs and his thumb brushes the underside of my breast and I make a noise.
I rock my hips.
It’s not a big movement. Just a shift. But the friction of him against me through two layers of denim sends a spark up my spine and I let out a whimper. Milo’s hands tighten at my back. His forehead drops to my collarbone.
“Fuck, Sage.”
I grind again and this time he groans, loud and desperate, his hands flexing and then going very still. His hips jerk under me. He seems shocked at himself, like his body betrayed every ounce of self-control he tried for in the last hour.
I plant a palm on his chest and push him back on the couch. He goes with it, that wild grin stretching across his face.
“Just so you know, if you keep dry humping me like this, I’m gonna come in my pants like a teenager, and I want that to be a deliberate choice on your part, not an accident.”
I do it again.
He laughs—surprised, breathless, his head dropping onto the back of the couch.
His hand at my back pulls me harder against him, and the next time I rock my hips it’s with intent.
I want him to come in his pants. I want to drive his brain to static, his body to overload.
I want a stupid, embarrassing, no-brakes mess. I want to be what throws him off.
Everything since dinner has been made out of nervous laughter and wanting and a growing need that feels like hunger when you’re already full.
“Kitten.” He hisses.
I push my hips down and grind in a slow, open circle. He gasps. His hands find the waistband of my jeans and hold me there, and I feel the shudder go through him, a full-body tremor that makes me tingling-hot everywhere.
“Fuck,” he pants, “that’s—God, Sage, you’re a fucking problem—” He rocks back, hard, answering my pressure with his own, and we set a rhythm with the TV still going and the Duke and the Lady doing something on screen that I’m in no position to follow anymore.
“Oh, fuck,” I breathe, heat taking over me.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“Milo.”
“Want me to stop?”
“No!”
“Want me to keep telling you what an excellent decision you’re making?”
“Yes!”
“You’re making an excellent decision.”
I bite his shoulder through his T-shirt. He laughs again. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.
He shifts under me—angles his thigh up between mine—and the friction changes and gets better, building, low and tight and rising.
I moan.
“That’s it, kitten,” he murmurs into my throat. “Use me. Take what you want. I’m here to be used.”
“Milo, oh my god—”
“I know. I know. That’s it.”
His hand finds my hair and gathers it at the back of my neck.
He tugs gently, tipping my head back, his mouth at my throat.
I’m grinding down on his thigh and he’s pressing up to meet me and the laughter is gone now from his voice, replaced by something warmer and more focused, his breath ragged along with mine.
“You’re going to come on me,” he growls. “On my leg. Just from this.”
“Yes.”
“Sage. Look at me.”
I look at him.
His eyes are dark. The grin is gone. His hand is in my hair and the other is at the small of my back holding me against him and his face is open in a way I have never seen it.
The chaos clerk, the patter machine, the man who would not stop talking through dinner—quiet now. Watching me. Looking at me.
“Come for me.”
I do.
I come grinding on his thigh with my mouth on his and his hand fisted in my hair and his voice in my ear saying, “That’s it, that’s it, that’s my girl, beautiful, fuck, that’s it,” and it tears through me bright and easy.
I collapse against him.
He holds me. His hand at my back slows to lazy circles. His other hand has migrated to my hair, stroking, slow.
“Milo.”
“Mm.”
“You didn’t—”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not, I can feel you—”
“I’m fine, Sage. This is hands-down the most fun I’ve had this year. Don’t you dare ruin it by trying to be polite.”
“It’s not polite, I want—”
I reach for him.
He catches my hand.
“Nope.”
“Milo.”
“Tonight is a one-way street, kitten.” He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles, one at a time. “Next time you can wreck me. Tonight we’re watching movies.”
“That’s not—”
“Arms up.”
He settles my shirt back over my head, pulling back down to my waist before dropping a kiss on the end of my nose.
“I’ll be right back.” He nudges me gently. I climb off his lap reluctantly and flop onto the couch beside him, dazed and warm and a little wrecked. He stands. Stretches. Goes to the kitchen and comes back with two glasses of water and hands me one.
“Drink.”
“Milo—”
“Drink.”
I drink.
He drains his glass in one long pull, and sets it on the coffee table. Then he picks up the remote, points it at the TV, and switches Bridgerton off mid-scene.
“Hey—”
“New rule. Nobody touching below the belt for me”—he points at his crotch—“or below the collarbone for you”—he looks pointedly at my breasts—“until Frodo gets to Mount Doom.” He begins clicking through the streaming app menu. “We need a chastity buffer, and I know just the ticket.”
Frodo?
“Lord of the Rings,” he says triumphantly, hitting play.
“Milo!”
“The extended editions.” He gives me a severe look, as I dissolve into giggles.
Who knew sex and laughter could be so intertwined?
“Don’t argue. This is for our protection.” He places a hand over his crotch. “Mostly mine. I am one good kiss away from forgetting I have principles, and Frodo’s never let me down.”
Shaking my head, I smile. “I’ve never seen them.”
He freezes. Slowly, very slowly, he turns to look at me.
“I’m sorry?”
“I haven’t—”
“Sage.”
“What?”
He blinks at me. “Sage Adams.”
“Milo Hart?”
“Sage—wait, what’s your middle name? I don’t have one, by the way.”
“Victoria.”
“Sage Victoria Adams. You’re seriously telling me you’ve never seen Lord of the Rings?”
“Is that bad?”
“Is that bad.” He clutches his chest, gasping as if wounded.
“Is it bad? Is it bad!? Sage. That is—you have a foundational gap in your personhood! This is a moral emergency! It’s a—okay.
Okay, this is fine.” He flaps his hands up and down in a “settle down” gesture.
“All right, we’re going to stay calm. We’ve got this.
We’ll fix this tonight. Right now. Together. ”
I glance at the clock. “Milo, it’s nearly ten.”
“Time is a construct.” He points to his side. “Now come here and sit. Allow me to instruct you in the ways of the Ring.”
Chuckling, I shuffle over until I’m thigh to thigh with him.
He cues up the first in the Fellowship. Reaching behind him, he picks up a throw blanket and shakes it out before draping it over us.
“Head,” he says, patting his shoulder.
I put my head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around me, holding me gently.
It’s ridiculously nice.
“There. Now we’re going to watch Lord of the Rings—with our hands above the blanket, thank you.”
I smile, lifting my hands.
“And absolutely nothing else is happening here.” He makes a sweeping gesture toward the TV. “Behold the Ring of chastity. Behold its power.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You say that, but I already know you’re going to fall in love with Aragorn in approximately forty-five minutes, and I’m going to be insecure about it. That’s our journey for tonight. Ready?”
I sigh, snuggling closer into his side. “Lead on, good sir.”
He hits play and the opening narration starts.